Thomas Troward and Haanel's Master Key System

Thomas Troward appears by name exactly once in The Master Key System, at the start of Part Three, where Charles Haanel quotes "Judge Troward" on the two nervous systems of the body. The passage comes from Troward's book The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science (1904), though Haanel condensed and reordered it. The single citation understates the debt. Troward's division of mind into an objective, reasoning side and a subjective side that accepts suggestion, and his claim that the subjective mind in each person is a share of one universal mind, sit close to the center of Haanel's course. This page sets out what the record shows, compares the two texts, and notes where they part.

Who Thomas Troward was

Troward was an English writer whose books shaped the New Thought movement. The title page of his best-known book describes him as "Late Divisional Judge, Punjab," a post he held in British India. Wikipedia records that he retired from the bench in 1896 and that his long interest was comparative religion. He died in 1916.

His foreword to The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science explains that the book "contains the substance of a course of lectures recently given by the writer in the Queen Street Hall, Edinburgh," and is signed "T.T., March, 1904." Its stated purpose is to set out the natural principles governing the relation between mental action and material conditions. The book has sixteen short chapters, from "Spirit and Matter" through "Subjective and Objective Mind," "The Law of Growth," "Healing" and "The Will" to "The Body," "The Soul" and "The Spirit." Later books followed, including The Doré Lectures (1909) and The Creative Process in the Individual (1910). All are now in the public domain.

The Part Three quotation

Part Three opens with the claim that the interaction of conscious and subconscious mind needs a matching interaction between two systems of nerves. Haanel then writes: "Judge Troward indicates the very beautiful method in which this interaction is effected. He says: 'The cerebrospinal system is the organ of the conscious mind and the sympathetic is the organ of the subconscious.'" The quotation runs on to describe the solar plexus as "a ganglionic mass at the back of the stomach" and the vagus nerve as "a connecting link between the two."

The source is Chapter XIV of the Edinburgh Lectures, titled "The Body." Comparing the two shows that Haanel did not copy Troward word for word.

• Order. Troward builds up to the point. He describes each system first, then concludes: "Thus the cerebro-spinal system is the organ of conscious mind and the sympathetic is that of sub-conscious mind." Haanel moves that conclusion to the front.
• Cuts. Troward adds that the solar plexus is "sometimes spoken of as the abdominal brain" and that through the vagus nerve "we control the vocal organs." Both details are missing from Haanel's version.
• Firmer wording. Troward calls the vagus "one conspicuous connection" between the systems. Haanel's text says the connection "is made by the vagus nerve," as if it were the only one.

The quotation marks in Part Three therefore enclose a paraphrase. The substance is Troward's, and Haanel credits him, but readers who want Troward's exact words should go to Chapter XIV. Our page on the subconscious mind covers what Haanel builds on this passage, including the solar plexus as the "sun of the body."

Objective and subjective mind

Troward's fourth chapter, "Subjective and Objective Mind," gives the framework Haanel's Part Two follows. Troward treats the two as functions of a single mind and calls them two minds only "as a matter of convenience." He states that "the subjective mind is only able to reason deductively and not inductively, while the objective mind can do both." He supports this with hypnotism, writing that experiments on hypnotized subjects show the subjective mind "will accept any suggestion, however false," and then reasons from it with strict logic. From this he concludes that "the subjective mind is entirely under the control of the objective mind."

Haanel's Part Two makes the same moves in his own words. The conscious mind "has the power of reasoning whether inductive, deductive, analytical, or syllogistic." It is "the watchman at the gate" of the subconscious, because fear, worry and disease so often come from "false suggestions accepted by the unguarded subconscious mind." Haanel adds that "The subconscious mind cannot argue controversially," and in Part Three, "The subconscious mind cannot argue." He also settles the question Troward raised. In the closing Questions and Answers, asked whether we have two minds or one, Haanel answers: "We have one mind with two distinct functions."

One universal subjective mind

The deeper shared idea is the link between the individual and the universal. In his fifth chapter Troward argues that the intelligence pervading all nature "is purely subjective mind," and that "the subjective mind in ourselves is the same subjective mind which is at work throughout the universe." He suggests we may "loosely speak of our individual subjective mind as our personal share in the universal mind," and he describes the relation between subjective and objective mind as "the bridge" between universal creative power and particular results.

Part Fourteen of the Master Key course says nearly the same thing. The subconscious and the Universal differ "only as a drop of water differs from the ocean." Haanel calls the subconscious "the connecting link between the Universal Mind and the conscious mind," so that the conscious mind "can consciously suggest thoughts which the subconscious mind will put into action." Haanel does not cite Troward here. The resemblance is clear, but the text alone cannot show whether it comes from direct reading or from the wider New Thought writing both men belonged to.

Where the two differ

Form. Troward wrote a short book of lectures that argues step by step and assigns no practice. Haanel wrote a 24-part course that ends each week with an exercise, from sitting still to holding a mental picture. Troward explains a theory. Haanel trains attention.

Evidence. Troward rests much of his case on hypnotism and suggestion, the experimental psychology of his day. Haanel leans more on analogies from electricity and on quotations from scientists and poets. Neither offers evidence that would satisfy a modern reader, and the claim that suggestion to the subconscious can reshape the body or outer conditions has not been shown to work as described.

Tone about results. Troward notes that the universal mind's openness to any suggestion leads to what he calls "very serious conclusions," which he saves for the book's concluding section. Haanel is more openly practical, applying the same principles to health, money and success in later parts.

Troward's later reach

According to Wikipedia, Geneviève Behrend studied with Troward from 1912 to 1914 and was the only personal student he ever had. His objective and subjective vocabulary spread widely through later New Thought writing, including Joseph Murphy's The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963), which describes the conscious mind as the objective mind.

For readers of Charles Haanel, the practical value of knowing Troward is simple. The Part Three passage and the drop-and-ocean image in Part Fourteen read differently once you have seen the source. The Edinburgh Lectures are short, and reading them beside Parts Two, Three and Fourteen of The Master Key System shows clearly which ideas Haanel inherited and what he built on them.